I would recommend to move as soon as possible to finding the Pali definitions of the words instead of using the bilingual dictionary:viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2790Such Pali glosses can also be used for flash cards.

1st: Working through De Silva's Pali Primer (difficulty: easy)2nd: Working through "A New Course in reading Pali" and listening to Bhikkhu Bodhi's lessonshttp://bodhimonastery.org/a-course-in-t ... guage.html (difficulty: medium)3rd: Working through "Introduction to Pāli" by A. K. Warder (a bit more comprehensive than the previous book)

After those steps (or even after the first 2), one is ready to begin translating the Pali canon with the help of one or two translations, and a dictionary.

Wow, this is great, thank you very much. I have recently wished to learn Pali, so I'm glad I found this post before investing any resources.

Oh, forgot to ask, how would any of you who have learned it rate Pali in comparison to difficulty in learning other languages for English speakers? How does it compare to say, French, Russian and Chinese?

Metta,

Sabba rasam dhammaraso jinatiThe flavor of the dhamma exceeds all other flavors

Sambojjhanga wrote:Oh, forgot to ask, how would any of you who have learned it rate Pali in comparison to difficulty in learning other languages for English speakers? How does it compare to say, French, Russian and Chinese?

I would say that it is no harder than learning French or German — there is no need to learn a new alphabet, as there is for Russian or Chinese. However, there are not many who can talk in Pali so it's not as easy as learning a living language from native speakers.

Pāli has some similarities to Latin, so if you ever learn Latin conjugations and declensions in school, you would have a head start.

I have never really learnt Pāli properly, doing no more than working through the "New Pali Course" text books that would be used in Sri Lankan schools by teenagers when learning Pāli. However, it gave me enough knowledge to get started, so I can now follow the gist when reading the Pali texts or Commentaries.

It's also worth pointing out that it is much easier to learn to read a language than to learn to speak it.

I suggest working your way through Warder's Introduction to Pali, then carefully read through the book a second time. Having accomplished that immerse yourself in the Pali texts themselves - I recommend the Majjhima Nikaya using Ven. Bodhi's revision of Ven. Nanamoli's translation as a guide. A keen interest in etymology also helps.

Parsing is laborious but very helpful in mastering the language as well.